Am I entirely off, or are these entirely equivalent, in price and in power? (And if so, if one doesn't care about desktop size, why wouldn't one get an eMac over a Mac mini other than wanting the newer toy?)

$150 is a reasonable price for a nice-ish 17" CRT, but they can be had for less, even for a name-brand.

Some people would say the Mini is better still since you're not 'stuck' with the eMac's display should it be faulty or you want to upgrade. The Mini does offer that added flexibility ... you can hook it up to a TV as a set-top box, or to a nice LCD to save a lot of desk space, though of course that costs more than $150. And I wouldn't discount the real appeal to many people of paying a slight premium just for its size.

Personally i would say go for the emac. it is much easier to expand the ram and other innards, the other thing is the mac mini uses a laptop HD, so its going to cost you a Sh** load of money to get the anything over 80. the emac comes with a monitor, which is flat, not CRT if i am correct. you will be completely set with it right out of the box, the mac mini needs a monitor.

Personally i would say go for the emac. it is much easier to expand the ram and other innards, the other thing is the mac mini uses a laptop HD, so its going to cost you a Sh** load of money to get the anything over 80. the emac comes with a monitor, which is flat, not CRT if i am correct. you will be completely set with it right out of the box, the mac mini needs a monitor.

Am I entirely off, or are these entirely equivalent, in price and in power? (And if so, if one doesn't care about desktop size, why wouldn't one get an eMac over a Mac mini other than wanting the newer toy?)...

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it's all about the consumer having a choice

Apple's entry level systems are all something like 1.25GHz, 40GB HD, with a max of 1G of ram

there's a laptop, the iBook... an "all-in-one", the eMac... and a "bring-your-own", the Mac Mini

if you already have your keyboard, mouse, monitor ad stereo speakers....then get the Mini

if you don/t have those things and like the concept of an "all-in-one", the eMac is for you

Am I entirely off, or are these entirely equivalent, in price and in power? (And if so, if one doesn't care about desktop size, why wouldn't one get an eMac over a Mac mini other than wanting the newer toy?)

So apart from the blatantly obvious things (like form factor, display flexibility, price), there are quite a few differences between the two systems.

(Edit: A few other things I just thought of. The eMac has the hard drive and the optical drive on separate IDE channels. As far as I know (mini owners, please correct me if this is wrong), the mini has the hard drive and optical drive on the same IDE channel. This means that disk performance will be degraded on the mini if the hard drive and the optical drive are being accessed at the same time. The other thing I remembered is that the eMac can actually be expanded to 2GB of RAM, using 2 1GB DIMMs. There is a report at xlr8yourmac here: http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/archives/apr04/042904.html#S17348)

Pasted and summarized (I'm allowed since it was my post ):
"eMac has several advantages over the mini... Much more RAM friendly (2 slots, user-accessible, and cheaper to upgrade since you can keep the standard RAM and add to it, instead of having to "swap" it), faster optical drive, more ports, Mac-branded keyboard, mouse, and 17" monitor included..."

However, the two machines are really close in comparison. I should definitely say the Mac mini is MUCH smaller and MUCH lighter, which is are two important advantages if they'll be more convenient for you...

Seems to me that there's room in G4 specs for two more updates for the eMac.

Still, what I'd like to see Apple do is introduce a 15", cheaper LCD iMac and a sort of Super Mini that would be faster, have a 64MB graphics card, etc. It could be the sort of boutique Mini for all those who miss the Cube.

I don't think you are going to get a better spec mini for a while - Apple wants to appeal to Windows Users with iPods, and they can only do that if the computer is *very* cheap.

Also, I honestly don't see why adding a G5 to an eMac would be an issue - it's got fans, and plenty of room.

Infact - I don't see why they couldn't have added a G4 processor to the original snow iMac?

I first switched to a G3 600Mhz Snow iMac, with 640 MB of RAM and 16MB video card. I have recently sold my iMac and bought a new eMac - 1.25Ghz G4 processor and 512MB of DDR Ram and a 32MB video card. I love it, I think it's great

I suppose it is up to Apple if it wants to completely eradicate CRT monitors from it's product line - after all "some" people do prefer them.

There is going to be some clash between the Mac Mini and eMac as the run at the same speeds and have the same video card. I think Apple should perhaps upgrade this G4 processor (perhaps 1.6Ghz (if it exists!)) which is still faster than the top model Mac Mini.

Converting the eMac to a G5 processor, or discontinuing the eMac will cause problems as there will be clashes between the iMac and eMac if the processor if changed to G5 (just like there was with the last G4 iMac).
Discountinuing the eMac would leave nothing for the education market. Lets put it like this: I wouldn't want to trust people with LCD iMacs in my school!

It is possible that Apple plans to phase out the eMac in favor of the Mac Mini for edu sales. There are some advantages - potential low cost since "switcher" schools can use existing displays.

I'm not saying they will but the two computers are so similar in capability that it seems unlikely that they will co-exist for long. Either the eMac will go G5 (it can already be done but it has no place in Apple's lineup), or disappear, or be offered only to schools, like it was originally.

The big advantage of the eMac for me is the dual-monitor support. I use my emac with a 19" monitor as a second display (used the "screen-spanning doctor" applescript from http://macparts.de/ibook to enable spanning). A mini is a slower, less expandable system in every way compared to an emac - its main advantage is being small and cute.

It is possible that Apple plans to phase out the eMac in favor of the Mac Mini for edu sales. There are some advantages - potential low cost since "switcher" schools can use existing displays.

I'm not saying they will but the two computers are so similar in capability that it seems unlikely that they will co-exist for long. Either the eMac will go G5 (it can already be done but it has no place in Apple's lineup), or disappear, or be offered only to schools, like it was originally.

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I agree with you 100%. Im sure they have a large pile of Emacs for schools but are on the way out for the consumer. I have stated it before but shipping crt"s is a pain in the arse and they really are about obsolete when you compare new Lcd performance and low power consumption. CRTs are a dinosaur. By the way iam looking again at my 17"crt studio display connected to my quicksilver now that my wife has the mini.

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